There were two brothers of a princely family who did not enjoy the promotion to the rank of Witless so unreservedly as Uschakow had done. Flögel does not give their names, nor state whence he derives the story, which is to this effect. The brothers had joined a conspiracy, the object of which was to slay the Czar; but which, being discovered, and the principal plotters summarily hanged, the brothers found that their turn for responsibility had arrived. This they endeavoured to avoid by feigning a comic sort of madness; and when this was reported to Peter, he granted them their lives, but decreed that in every subsequent act of theirs they should be held to be as mad as they had pretended to be, and treated accordingly. This novel species of torture does not seem very intolerable, but as they were retained at court, the brothers found it past endurance. One of them sank into a deep melancholy, and the other drank himself into raging madness, in order to forget that men accounted him mad. Peter, who judged so terribly of others, once submitted to judgment himself. In a fit of frolicsome humour, he one evening placed one of his jolly companions on the throne, before which the Czar stood to give an account of his actions. At the side of the throne stood Peter’s favourite fool, who made running comments on every phrase uttered by the real or the pseudo-Czar, in the style of the ancient Chorus, or rather in the merry fashion of Mr. Charles Mathews when representing the ancient Chorus in a burlesque at the Haymarket. Peter came indifferently off in presence of a judge and fool both of whom, having full license of speech, used their liberty to the utmost, amid the risibility of an ecstatic audience. It is well known how Peter loved to play other parts besides that of Czar. When, in London, he went to a masked ball at the Temple, he appeared in the costume of a butcher. So he is described in Luttrell’s Diary. We find a trait still more illustrative of his character, in connection with a Christmas incident in his own country. Formerly, we are told, there was a ceremony in Russia called “Slaevens.” It consisted of a sledge procession which took place between Christmas and the New Year, in which the clergy, splendidly attended, stopped at certain houses, sang a _Te Deum laudamus_ or an occasional carol, and received in return rich donations from those who wished to be considered peculiarly orthodox Christians. Peter the Great once witnessed this procession, and was so edified by the amount of the contributions, that he relieved the clergy of all further trouble, by a simple process. He placed himself, suitably attired, at the head of the sledges and the Church, sang his own carols, and pocketed the contributions of the loyal and the faithful, with the ecstasy of a man who has discovered a new sensation combining profit with pleasure.